


back to you

by softlightwood



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Fix-It, M/M, a post-battle world, injury mentions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-04
Updated: 2017-08-04
Packaged: 2018-12-11 04:34:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11706915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/softlightwood/pseuds/softlightwood
Summary: They look at each other for a long, terse moment and Alec is pulling Magnus into a hug, fingers carding the hair at the back of Magnus' head, nose filled with the scent of burned magic and blood and mud. "I was so scared," his voice is a whisper, "so terrified that I would lose you, that I woulddiebefore I got to tell you how much I love you""I saw a man" Magnus tells him, "tall, dark hair, bow strapped to his back. He was dead. I have never, Alexander, felt a pain so raw in my life. When I got close enough to realise it wasn't you I'm ashamed to say the relief I felt was so all-encompassing it floored me. I made a decision in that moment that, should we both survive, and should you have me, i will never let you go again. I love you, Alec"It feels like his heart could pound right out of his chest.





	back to you

**Author's Note:**

> look who's back
> 
> i wanted to write a little fix-it because I'm wounded after this week's episode and also, i was in the mood to write something reflective so this happened
> 
> enjoy!!

Cars drift by in the heavy, midnight darkness, headlights cutting a path through mostly deserted roads and not one of them knows what could have been. A man in a pick-up truck driving home from the night shift doesn't know that just hours before, his entire existence, his whole world was threatened by a rampaging dark force intent on wiping out every living thing. Maybe, Alec thinks, life is easier that way. Waking up to eat breakfast and travel to work, sitting in an office or teaching a class or building a house and then going home, watching mundane television, laughing with a family you don't spend every second fearing you'll lose. 

The fighting is over now. Both Valentine and Jonathan dead, no one willing to risk the repercussions if they were detained and managed to escape. It simply wasn't worth it. 

It was bloody, and hard, and gruesome. Clary, Jace and Isabelle are all in the infirmary being treated for injuries sustained in the throngs of battle, nothing that won't heal with rest and runes but wounds that will leave scars, a reminder of this night. Alec should probably still be there too; his hand is swollen from a broken bone somewhere below the knuckles and he has more cuts and nicks than he could count. A demon had clocked him in the jaw, which hurt like hell and a medic had been frowning at his knee before she was rushed off somewhere else, leaving him alone. Everything was too suffocating, in the little white room. Too clean and precise and neat, juxtaposing so violently with the battlefield that it made him feel dizzy. Naturally, he found himself on the roof. 

There wasn't much up here. A small garden that he tended to from time to time, a ledge perfect for sitting on, feet dangling in the air, the breeze working through his hair. It was nice, mostly, but now he just felt sadness. Magnus had been at the battle, Alec knows. Flashes of angry, red magic ploughing into demons left and right, whipping by his ear to take out assailants behind him, just as instinctually as Alec had fired arrows to protect everyone else. And they'd fought together, briefly, a winged beast wreaking havoc until Alec's arrows and Magnus' fire took it down. There had been a moment, just one, in the thick of battle where they had locked eyes, Magnus' gold and shining with anger and _something_ transpired between them, a sentiment, a promise. Then Magnus had spun off to help an injured Raphael and Alec had been dragged bodily into a fight with a Ravak demon and they'd lost track of one another for the rest of the fight. 

Alec hadn't seen him since. Really, hadn't spoken to him since the day Magnus left. 

He's alive. Simon had found Alec in the infirmary. As he'd opened his mouth to direct Simon to Clary's room, Simon had perched on the edge of Alec's hospital bed and informed him, in a careful voice, that Magnus was tending to the wounded back at the Jade Wolf. It was a nice gesture; up until that point, Alec had been out of his mind with a paralysing fear that Magnus was out there somewhere, lying cold and dead and he'd never get to tell him again just how much he loved him. Knowing Magnus was alive, helping his people, well. 

That divide was what had gotten between them in the first place. It had hit him with shocking clarity that Magnus' downworld allies needed him more than Alec did, that Magnus might not even be thinking about him, where he was, if he was hurt. Then he realised he was being too deprecating and Magnus must have been told by someone, maybe Luke, maybe Simon, that Alec was alive and as well as could be expected post-war. 

Still, it didn't stop the ache in his chest, the one screaming for Magnus. Just to have him close, touch his skin, see him unharmed. But Alec couldn't make it to the docks in his condition; he'd almost fainted just taking the steps to the roof, and even if he could, he wasn't certain Magnus would want to see him right now. 

He shifts, and a gash across his abdomen gushes a fresh well of blood. Tracing the lines of his iratze makes him feel woozy with how many injuries it rushes to treat and his stele slips to the ground, rolling a few inches away. Then, just as swiftly, it rolls back and taps against his knuckles. Alec frowns at it. 

"It looks as though you're going to need that" says a familiar voice, cracking with emotion despite the context. Stupidly, Alec scrambles to his feet and immediately grips his side, hissing at the disrupted wound there. Magnus is disheveled and bleeding from a graze on his cheekbone, standing with the posture of a man who is hiding more injuries than he'd like to let on. "Aren't you a sight for sore eyes"

" _Magnus_ " is all Alec can come up with, stumbling forwards on unsteady feet, hand cupping Magnus face before he can register what his hands are doing and he strokes a line beneath the gash, mouth tipped into a frown, "you're hurt"

"I'm okay, I just-" he trails off, looking over Alec for injury. Suddenly, his eyes fill with tears, "I had to see for myself that you were okay. I wondered why you hadn't come, but I see now that you shouldn't even be out of bed"

They look at each other for a long, terse moment and Alec is pulling Magnus into a hug, fingers carding the hair at the back of Magnus' head, nose filled with the scent of burned magic and blood and mud. "I was so scared," his voice is a whisper, "so terrified that I would lose you, that I would _die_ before I got to tell you how much I love you"

"I saw a man" Magnus tells him, "tall, dark hair, bow strapped to his back. He was dead. I have never, Alexander, felt a pain so raw in my life. When I got close enough to realise it wasn't you I'm ashamed to say the relief I felt was so all-encompassing it floored me. I made a decision in that moment that, should we both survive, and should you have me, i will never let you go again. I love you, Alec"

It feels like his heart could pound right out of his chest. 

"Of course I'll have you. Always. I don't want to be without you, Magnus. I can't do it again"

"You never have to" Magnus assures him, adamant, pulling back to look Alec in the eyes. "You said it yourself. We'll always find our way back to each other"

They're kissing, then, a gentle thing, careful of the multitude of injury between them but it settles the weight in Alec's chest, having Magnus' hair between his fingers and lips upon his own. It feels like home, like healing. They have much to talk about, politics to work through, arguments to settle, trusts to reinforce but now, here, they're okay. 

Magnus kisses him like its the first time and _they're okay_.

**Author's Note:**

> follow me on tumblr @ softlightwood


End file.
